Archive for the ‘ Mental ’ Category

Transcript

How to improve focus part 3

This third lesson on how to improve your ability to focus is really easy yet powerful when you implement it as a habit.

As I said in the previous videos on improving focus, you already know how to do this. I’ve worked with kids with extreme ADD who, by some miracle, can get themselves to focus for hours when they play video games. It’s a matter of motivation and directing your thoughts.

Having said that, the biggest problem holding you back from implementing your amazing ability to focus is in thinking you need to focus more than you do.

Think about this for a second. We are out there on a golf course for about 3-4 hours. Can anyone really focus that long with a high intensity? Absolutely not! You would probably have a massive headache if you tried that. In fact, many of us play golf because it’s relaxing and offers us an escape from our daily life of stress and personal troubles right?

Many of my golf rounds are spent having a beer or two, laughing and joking with my friends and going for miracle shots and long drives…just for the fun of it! Even when I’m golfing like that, I still manage to bring in the focus but only during those 10 seconds…

Right before I’m ready to take the shot or putt. That’s all you need to focus…10 seconds a shot, no more! That’s not asking much of ourselves. I can do that even while I’m playing a beer round. You can do that!

10 seconds times 90 strokes is 900 seconds for a total of 15 whole minutes spread out over a time period of 3-4 hours….this is easy! You’ve done far more than that when you pick up a book or magazine article to read, let alone when you are at work or watching your favorite TV show.

(which you are probably really good at focusing over there).

So, the trick is to make an extreme focus for 10 seconds, part of your pre shot routine. Make it habit. If you don’t have a very good pre shot routine, well then, you’d better get one. I teach mine in my break 80 without practice course.

What I’ve been teaching you here is that you don’t need to learn any new “skill”about focusing. You just need to approach things differently than you have if you really want to lower your scores. I’m not going to tell you to eliminate your bad habits for how you’ve been doing things that destroy your focus ability. It’s tough to eliminate habits. But, it’s EASY to replace habits with other habits.

If you want to lower your score and you believe that your lack of focus in the past is what’s held you back, then you’ve got to make a commitment to the tools I’ve given you here. You’ve got to attack this issue with just as much determination as you do when your swing is off.

The great thing about the mental game is that you can practice it everywhere. Are you thinking of ways to practice what I’ve taught you in this series at home or in your mind?

Ok, we all know the frustrating experience of just piping our driver and irons at the range but we can’t seem to hit the broad side of a barn on the golf course! How many times have you said to yourself “man, I was hitting the ball sooooo good at the range but I can’t seem to hit the ball anywhere I’m aiming today!” This happens to amateurs and pros alike. Imagine having a process, a strategy, that lets you take your very best driving range swing to the golf course?! Seriously. Read on… I remember getting to this part of how training and my eyes lit up and my heart raced in anticipation of what I might learn. You’re going to see almost all of it. There is definitely enough here to use and transfer your best swings to the golf course. I love this stuff!Special 50% off Deal on Wade’s Golf Whole Mind Mastery Course- Click Here

Take a look at a few players at the PGA Championship this weekend. There are various playing styles. Yet something interesting is happening on tour due to the equipment.

Swings have changed over the years but never as much as the modern swing has due to the new drivers. They swing as hard as possible to hit it as far as possible since the drivers and ball combinations have allowed this. So what does this mean to playing styles?

Well, for one there are less true Magicians left in the game. Players have naturally evolved into would-be conquerors. Yet many players don’t suit that at all but still mindless try to become one. Because the game promotes that style of play nowadays. Don’t get caught in that trap! Be who YOU are and play to your strength. You will always, always, always score better when you know your playing style and manage your round based on this.

By the way, diff I say “always” enough?! Ok, now let’s look at Tom Watson. His evolution is more natural and not driven by equipment. He was definitely a magician for the majority of his playing career but now he has become more of a Strategist. Never attempting to overpower the course or over swing for a few measly extra yards. No, his wisdom is in knowing the natural evolution of his playing style. Just think, he almost won the British Open in his late 60’s! We’ll likely never see that happen again. That’s the power of knowing your game.

Rory is now a true Conqueror. Unbelievably string with his driver he just smashes his drives long and straight and overpowers a golf course.

Tiger is stuck in no-man’s land. He must know, even if only at a subconscious level, that his game doesn’t allow for him to play as a Conqueror anymore. Those days are behind him. Yet he’s stuck in being a technician which is really hurting his natural feel and gifts. Watch him and you can almost sense he’s thinking about his swing as opposed to thinking about his target. When he can trust being a true Strategist and connect his gifts to a more strategic approach he will attain a high level of performance once again. A man with that many wins has a reservoir of excellence inside and imagery of wins that no-one else on the planet has. He will find a way to win.

I’m not sure which is most important for golfers. Accuracy? Distance? Well, no matter which one might be in first place I know that consistency is my greatest desire in golf. In fact this must be near the top of most golfers wish list. You scan work on your swing and do traditional things to achieve this but I can guarantee you’ll NEVER have seen what you’re about that Wade created. It’s all about rhythm and timing and is so simple it’s ridiculous! But it just flat out works. Take the time to use this and you’ll be blown away at how your scores flatten out. The spikes up and down will dissolve and you’ll know, once and for all, what to do when your rhythm is off.

Special 50% off Deal on Wade’s Golf Whole Mind Mastery Course- Click Here
When was the last time you were nervous over a putt or a shot? Maybe the last time you stood on the first tee! Hey, we ALL get nervous at least once in a while. After all, we’re human, not robots. Ok, here are some things you can do today and while you play your very next round to eliminate nerves. Better yet, to make nerves your ally instead of an enemy.

I’ve been asked hundreds of times how to focus better in golf. If you’ve been golfing for any significant amount of time, you have undoubtedly finished a round and looked back on where you lost strokes and come to the conclusion that it was blow up hole or two where you lost your focus.

What happens when you lose focus?

You tend to get lazy in your swing, your routine, and in sending the correct messages to your unconscious golfer to put the ball on target…that’s what happens!

And then, that part of you that controls your golf swing or putting stroke will just dial up any old swing by default. (maybe a good one, maybe a bad one).

If you read other “mental game experts” advice on how to focus, they invariably tell you to take deep breaths and focus your mind on a point in space, and other such blah blah that just doesn’t work for most people. Try telling that to a person who has ADD. (I developed my techniques from working with lots of kids with ADD for my youth sports mental toughness training program)

The lesson is this video works for everyone and is extremely practical and easy to use, wherever you are, on or off the golf course.

Anyway, I want to see your comments below after you watch this video on part 2.

Transcript
I’m often asked about how to improve my focus on the course and in this video, I’ll address it by telling you that what you think is a “focus” problem is really a “motivation” issue. Yep, you heard me and I know you’ll agree when you follow my logic here.

so here it is, you go out on the course and when you stick to your pre shot routine and block out distractions and key in on your swing key and go through a consistent set of motions, you tend to get consistent results right? And then, when something knocks you off track like a bad shot or poor score on a hole, you lose your focus, right? Your emotions get out of hand, your mind starts coming up with negative thoughts about your game and all sorts of “interference” wrecks your swing and putting stroke.

Well here’s the interesting observation I’ve made over the years of working with golfers mental game. I’ve heard this story about needing to focus from doctors, high-level executives, and every sort of very successful people in various careers…here it comes….wait for it…. where they all had to use EXTREME focus for prolonged periods of time in order to achieve that success.

…and then they tell me that they have a FOCUS problem!

I don’t buy it! They all know how to focus fantastically. The kinds of distractions you’ve experienced on the golf course is NOTHING like what you face in your vocation or calling and yet, we say we have a focusing problem. No you don’t. The big difference is in your career, you have a very strong motivation to call on your ability to focus.

Often if you don’t call on it, you might get fired or at least have some sort of serious repercussion if you don’t. In your career, you’re completely driven and in the present moment dealing with every facet of what you do hour by hour.

On the golf course, however…it’s just a game. The motivation to call up that internal power you have and have used time and time again just isn’t there and so your mind wanders and is weak out there on the course. You would never have that kind of mental weakness in your career because, well frankly, it’s not tolerated out there.

Right now, I want you to go back to a time in your career (maybe it was yesterday) where you used your excellent ability to focus…and you got things done. And you did it for an extended period of time. Can you see it or feel that right now?

Don’t ask how to improve your focus…ask yourself how motivated am I to call upon what I already know how to do.

I have been playing golf for 40 years and coached athletes since I was 18. I have studied the mental side of sports performance, in particular golf, the whole time. If you do any reading of golf books or take advice from good players and sports psychologists, you WILL hear something like this:

Play one shot at a time

Let go of the outcome

Get in the present moment

Just swing like you do on your practice swing

Mimic easy-going players like Fred Couples or Ernie Els

etc. Right?

What IS the point of all of this? What does it accomplish?

It’s to get over the swing-killing nerves in your golf game.

Let me answer the details of how to do that by going first to a friendly game of tennis I was playing with my younger son, now 16, who doesn’t play golf. He loves tennis though and has been playing on his high school team and steadily improving every month.

Now, I consistently tell my boys: “You are going to be better than me” and other such encouraging words to let them know I believe in them to achieve their goals. (Parents of young athletes, this is a great tool for you, by the way. More inspiration for youth sports at mentaltoughnesstrainer.com). But, I usually don’t let them win. I want them to win fair and square and feel good about that when it happens.

As it is, I’m a fair tennis player and enjoy it occasionally now. For those of you that don’t play tennis, you should know that it has many similarities to golf.

Anyway, during one match with my son, I was up quite a bit and if things didn’t change, I was going to win and we were going to be done very soon.

I wanted to keep playing competitively like this and so I declared to myself that I was going to start hitting the ball harder, going for passing shots, trying all kinds of wild things I wouldn’t normally try and generally, play like we were just rallying (practicing hitting the ball back and forth). All of this in an effort to let him come back…and maybe to win.

I remember the distinct feeling of going against my principle of not letting my sons beat me, and then saying to myself that I’m going to play crazily anyway so he can come back and win. That somehow, in my mind, that was ok because I wasn’t “technically” letting him win. You see, I WASNT going to hit balls out of bounds or miss shots on purpose or anything like that. I just played more carefree and even reckless. I secretly wanted him to beat me but I wasn’t going to “tank” the match.

I’ll bet you know what I’m going to say next, huh?

Yep, I started playing amazing and actually sped up the process of beating him. I was totally shocked at how good I could play this game! It was quite surreal.

After the game, I told my son what I did and we had a long talk about how he could switch his mind into such an attitude when he is playing matches.

…and I’ve been playing around with this idea ever since.

Now, on the surface, this seems simplistic right? Just tell yourself that this round of golf you are playing doesn’t matter or that it’s just a practice round or something like that.

What was it really during my tennis match that flicked the switch in my body that freed me up to play so well?

That is the key.

Well, I’m sorry to say I don’t have a definitive answer for you. If I did, I would be rich because every athlete on the planet would be at my door. Overcoming performance anxiety (and this is exactly what we’re talking about) is the holy grail of golfers mental game and ultimately, their scores.

I do have some thoughts for you here that I want to share that may unlock this inner power for you. For now, you just want to CONSIDER what I write here. Let these thoughts percolate and sink in. Don’t be in a hurry to “make it happen” your next round and apply it right away. This didn’t all happen overnight for me and I’m still working on bringing this to the golf course more consistently.

So, I think the real key is in TRULY BELIEVING that you don’t care about winning. You can’t fake out your body, you have to really mean it. That switch I mentioned in my tennis match is “The idea that you really, truly, have to think that it would be great if your competitor would beat you.”

In fact, as I was playing my son, I was thinking about how I was going to congratulate him afterwards and how good he was going to feel about himself and how good that would make me feel to see him shine like that. (Having kids teaches us so many things).

Let’s bring this back to golf as it all hit me again as I was watching the Masters this year. Bubba Watson was in a tight match with Jordan Spieth during the final round on Sunday. And I heard it from the announcer:

Bubba said in an interview that if he doesn’t win that he would be very happy to have Jordan Spieth win. Here’s another Bubba quote from a news article after the third round:

“I’ve won one, so I’ve got that going for me. If I play bad I still have a green jacket.”

Now, of course, you say. That’s easy for Bubba to relax and not care. He’d already won a Masters…

That’s right. And that was his advantage that Sunday and it got him his second green jacket. But I don’t think that’s the key…

Because I’ve never heard anyone talk about how he said he would be very happy if Jordan Spieth won. I can’t find the quote in any news article but I promise you I heard it with my own ears.

Can you imagine playing your next competitive round where you actually wished your competition well….seriously and truly?

Try this your next round and let me know what happens. Have fun with it. Don’t push it, just experience it. Go with it without any expectations of it helping you win anything. Remember, you’ve got to TRULY believe it in order for it to have the desired effect.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue exploring this for you and report what I come up with as I continue working with golfers and other athletes in person.

In competitive golf, expectations are one of the killers of a good golf swing and putting stroke. If you go out there on the course with a mindset that you HAVE to protect your reputation or standing as a favorite, well, that can be a huge liability.

Whether you are or are not the favorite, you can take the attitude that YOU are the underdog. That you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

This is a powerful mental strategy that can pay off big time when you get good at it. Remember, reality is whatever you want it to be. It doesn’t matter one bit if you really are the favorite or not in order for you to get the benefits. Watch the video and tell me what you think in the comments.

Greens and fairways,

Craig

Win with an underdog mental attitude

Have you ever noticed that it’s easier to play loose and free in heavy competition when you’re
the underdog? When you don’t expect to win? When everyone thinks your opponent is better? It’s a sports cliche even in top pro sports that the competitor with “nothing to lose” is the most dangerous to play. Especially when playing at home. In the sport of golf, they take it a little further and actually say to look out for the golfer who has a cold or a sore throat.

Golf being such a mental game that if you have this underdog mental attitude from being sick, you actually have an advantage!! Think about this for a second. That “underdog” attitude is all made up in our heads. It’s not real. Nothing we “think” about is actually real. We can think anything we want and nobody can do anything about it if we don’t want them to. What if you were to go out there in every competition “pretending” that you are the underdog.

Pretending is just a thought like any other thought. What if you were to take a few moments before going out there and just talk yourself into a place where could play loose and free because there were no expectations on you to win? You can!

This takes some practice and I would recommend that every night before you go to bed before your next game or competition, you imagine yourself showing up to the competition with that mental attitude as the underdog. How would you stand and walk as the underdog? How would you talk differently?

Let me leave you with this one thought about this topic today… can you now see how your imagination can be a potent weapon of yours to help you play your best? Winners know how to direct their thoughts. Winners win in advance.I’m Craig Sigl

How many times have you thought you had a great round going and then you fell apart? This happens to every golfer from beginner to world-class pro.

Too many golfers think that the solution to the problem is to go out there and hit more balls and tweak their swing and then they find out that this only gets you so far and you keep choking under pressure.

In today’s video, I’ve got an eye-opener that you may not want to hear but is probably your truth, to some degree.

Your Beliefs Determine Your Score

What do you believe about yourself as a golfer? What score do you believe you have the ability to shoot? Haven’t you had a par on many par 3s, 4s, and 5s already?

Then why can’t we do it consistently and shoot low 70’s?

One of the reasons and it may be your biggest, is that you truly don’t believe you can. You have a mental ceiling on how well you can play. You know from following me that it’s your inner mind that guides your swing and putting stroke. It’s your unconscious mind that will literally cause you to break down if you start scoring better than you believe you can.

Let’s say you have a belief that you are a 90’s golfer. If you start having a run of pars that threaten that belief, well then, your unconscious mind will kick into gear and make you nervous so that you have trouble playing. It does this to make sure that your belief that you’re a 90’s shooter isn’t violated.

Yep, it’s true and this happens every day to us golfers.

What am I talking about when I say the word “belief?”

What that is is a network of thoughts, neural connections, that become activated in certain contexts and perceptions in your world. That’s the technical description but here’s another example outside of golf.

Did you know that a huge percent of lottery winners end up broke within 10 years of winning? It’s because they have a belief that having money is not good. Maybe that money is evil or that rich people are bad. So what happens in reality is that we make decisions based on emotion…which is controlled by your
unconscious mind, emotions that is.

So when an opportunity presents itself to invest or spend some of that money, the unconscious mind generates a feeling to get the person to spend the money on the very thing that will make sure to get rid of that money!! This system is all very subtle and golfers, and most people, are completely unaware of this process going on every day in their lives but rest assured, if you are human, you most likely have some beliefs that get triggered to make sure you don’t break your scoring barrier.

What’s the solution? Communicate to the unconscious mind and correct the beliefs holding you back.

My “Shortcut Secrets To Consistent Golf” program or my golfselfhypnosis.com membership site are designed to do just that.

Without these desructive beliefs, Your swing is good enough to go low. I’m Craig Sigl